Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

I spent Saturday digging in the dirt and planting. Yes, it's a bit early, but I wanted something to replace the beautiful bed of weeds I was growing next to my porch.

Considering that I have a black thumb (i.e., usually, whatever I plant dies), gardening involves a significant amount of hope. I try to plant hardy things - stuff that generally won't die of neglect - but sometimes I try new stuff just because I want things that look planned and pretty.

This weekend, I planted peonies and snapdragons. This will be my first time planting peonies, and I usually don't like them because of those little tiny ants you always see on the flowers, but I've heard from 2 reliable sources that those little ants are necessary to help the flowers open all the way. As long as they don't decide they'd rather live indoors, they can stay.

The snapdragons were just an impulse purchase - I've never grown them before, and I don't know why I decided on them this spring (other than that they were the only flowers available that looked like flowers instead of weeds), but I found yellow and red/pink ones.

Yesterday, I bought pansies, which are my favorites, and I also saw some impatiens (which I am going to wait on - it still seems a bit too cold here for impatiens). I have one area that I'm still deciding what to do with, since a) it's right in front of one of those basement egress windows and b) it currently has a mixture of weeds, hyacinths and hostas (which I also dislike - they're just leafy plants that take over everything!!).

My inclination is to cover everything over with newspaper, hay and bricks until the whole area is dead, and then put new topsoil (Miracle Gro Organic is my first preference), and plant annuals, and then put one of those cedar-y looking tall bushes (grows up to about 4 feet tall - can't think of the name) over to one side so that there is a "framing", if you will, of the "landscaped area."

My other option is to just put herbacide on everything and then cover it with rocks. I'm not sure which would be preferable, but I don't want any excessive vegetation blocking the fire exit from the basement egress window. Plus, if I plant things over there, I have to weed, water and otherwise keep up with whatever I plant....

Decisions, decisions, decisions....

I'll let you know.